


Valedictorian

by Eclipsxd



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Domestic Fluff, Environmental Science Major Jeonghan, Kinda, M/M, Magic, Non-Linear Narrative, Symbolism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 11:28:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21373408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eclipsxd/pseuds/Eclipsxd
Summary: Jeonghan had never given the existence of magic much thought. Jisoo's little shop seems to be a good place to start.
Relationships: Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Yoon Jeonghan
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	Valedictorian

Jisoo's shop is tiny.

An old, wooden shop front with peeling green paint and a wonky sign that’s only a few degrees away from falling off its hinges. Sandwiched between a chain coffee shop and a technical store, one could easily walk right past it and not notice it was there, ignoring it in favour of the bus stop directly opposite or the alluring scent of roasted coffee and the promise of caffeine. 

That’s what Jeonghan did many times, scurrying past on his way to grab his sixth coffee of the day and still make it in time for his next class. It’s small, unassuming, and generally uninteresting, never seemingly busy or having any customers, and yet never fading into obscurity like a lot of the smaller, independent shops all over the bustling and ever-changing high street

'Camellia', its called. Jeonghan had always been curious about the name, but never enough to actually look it up. Jisoo says its a type of flower.

The closer you look, the more it begins to stand out. That’s what Jeonghan found at least, when he spent several sleepy minuets at the back of a que one morning, waiting for his bus. The dark grey slate of the rooftop seems to stand out from the other roofs either side of it, the tiles oddly shaped. They seem to have been laid funny, so that they look more like scales than slate. The peeling green paint has this faint lustre to it that Jeonghan has never seen on any other shop front, or in any paint for that matter. It makes it almost glisten, like it’s dusted in fine glitter. 

For such an old shop, the glass is never dirty. It’s always perfectly polished, displaying all the strange things placed in the window. Jars of dried flowers, bags of smooth stones, old books and piles of fabric that look like a bunch of his grandmother’s scarves. The sign may look like its five seconds away from shattering on the cobblestone, but even in the strongest storms, it never falls. The faded words on the door, “Trinkets, Treasures and Tinctures”, were invisible to Jeonghan until he looked a little closer. He swears they weren’t even there before, swears he would have notice the cursive golden text just under the ornate golden knocker. 

“Like magic” Jisoo had said with a wink. 

Jeonghan had laughed, and Jisoo had looked at him with a wry smile on his face, like he was the joke instead.

\--------------------------------------

Attending university on the coast meant coming to terms with seagulls, and Jeonghan, although at first repulsed by their invasiveness and lack of volume control, has long since gotten used to them. Their screeching at one in the morning, guarding his food when he’s sitting outside to try and catch some fresh air, and managing his disgust when everything and anything is covered in bird poop, from benches to bike racks. He's also, in conjunction, developed a deep, grounding respect for the city's maintenance devision, who must scrub more poop than he writes essays. 

But despite the practically absurd amongst of gulls that have made their home in the city centre, nesting in the spires of the old churches, perched atop the ornate lamp posts and screaming at passers by, Camellia never has a drop of bird shit marring any of its peeling paintwork. While the surrounding stores have to constantly shell out for cleaners to scrub their patios, doorsteps and rooftops, Jeonghan doesn’t think he’s ever seen anyone cleaning at Camellia. And yet there’s almost a notable square where any mess on the pavement ends and Camellia’s property begins.

The shrieking and wailing of the birds is such familiar sounds to him now that Jeonghan has learned to block them out most of the time. It would be impossible to study otherwise, especially when he wants to study at the main library, a short walk away across town from his lecture hall. It’s a beautiful greco-roman inspired building, right by the harbour, with stunning views of the sea and a certain seat tucked into a small alcove near the back, right in front of a window, that Jeonghan adores. It would be impossible to study there without learning to mask the avian chaos outside the window under a gentle, constant rhythm of classical music and the occasional disney song, headphones resting atop blonde hair that moves lazily in the breeze that comes through the open window, and glows like a halo under the midday sun. 

But as soon as the door closes behind him as he steps into Jisoo's shop, Jeonghan can’t here a single shriek. No muffled cawing reaches him through Camellia's worn wooden walls, and he doesn’t here a single peep until he steps outside again, like he’s just taken off a good pair of noise-cancelling headphones. There’s always a tranquility inside Jisoo’s store, a quietness and a slower pace that somebody as busy and fastidious as Jeonghan, often immersed in hectic schedules and surrounded by animated, boisterous friends, can’t appreciate enough. 

“It’s magical in here, y’know. I’ve never appreciated quietness more so than when I’ve been sitting in on a debate between Soonyoung and Seungkwan over which Beyoncé song should replace the national anthem.”

Jisoo hums sympathetically, a hand on Jeonghan’s shoulder as he reaches up to take something off a shelf above his head. His touch sends a wave of warmth through Jeonghan’s body, and the smell of old leather and incense up his nose. 

\---------------------------------------

The bell above the door used to jingle when Jeonghan closed the door behind him, a jarring, high pitched sound that used to grate on his ears. It’s an old, heavy looking thing, held up by string and some interesting looking metalwork. Now, it doesn’t. 

The door used to be much heavier, he swears. He used to have to put his whole body weight against it to leverage it open. But now, he can open it with one hand, holding his overpriced chain coffee in the other. He asked Jisoo if it was broken, and the man had laughed at him, the sound like that of water bubbling over pebbles in a flowing stream.

“No. They probably recognise you by now."

The sound his shoes make against the plain, cold stone floor used to disconcert him somewhat, feeling the unnatural cold of the stone seeping through his soles. He walked tentatively and slowly, the sound made by his overly shiny leather loafers sounding far too loud to his ears, his nerves causing his tie to feel too tight around his throat. But now, his shoes are scruffy and scuffed, and he shuffles his way across the shop floor, the weight of the world outside being lifted a little from his shoulders as he breathes in the heady woodsy scent of the space. He no longer wears a tie everyday, far too exhausted by the weight of student life and the thought of his impending lab report to bother. Besides, Jisoo says its unnecessary. 

“Nobody wears a tie to class, Jeonghan. I haven’t worn a tie in decades.”

Jeonghan frowns, confused. “You don't go to class. And you told me you were in your twenties?”

Jisoo blinks, before giving him that soft smile that Jeonghan only sees when he’s said something that Jisoo finds inexplicably amusing. 

“I am.”

\----------------------------------------

The shop seems to have no opening or closing time. Jeonghan has been in there at five in the morning, and eleven at night - Jisoo is always there. When Jeonghan had asked where he lived, he'd simply pointed upwards. It's peculiar, because from the outside, Jeonghan didn't think the shop had a second floor.

There’s no sign on the door signally when it opens and closes - but the door is somehow always open for Jeonghan. It has no electricity - the shop is lit using gas lamps and candles, which is surely a flagrant violation of modern fire safety standards - but somehow has a fully working till that takes both card and cash, which springs open with a jolly jingling sound that is a little different every time. There's no obvious heating or air conditioning in the wooden structure, Jeonghan is unsure if the ancient-looking wooden beams could take a lot of tinkering, and yet the shop is always at a pleasant temperature. And despite not having anything resembling a coffee machine, Jisoo somehow had an almond milk late ready for Jeonghan when he stumbled into his shop instead of Starbucks one morning before one of his 8am lectures, ten minuets before his bus, and has had one ready for him every Thursday since. Always in a different mug. 

And no matter how much of Jisoo’s coffee Jeonghan drinks, he never gets withdrawal symptoms halfway through the day like he would do if he’d replaced a few pints of his blood with a mixture of concentrated espresso, almond milk and caramel-flavored sugar syrup like he used to. It keeps him going all through the day, so much so that he won’t need another pick-me-up until well after class, by which time he can drop by Jisoo’s shop again, where the man’s company is re-energising enough. Jisoo always promises he’ll charge Jeonghan for the coffee when the student persists, because he’s got enough student debt-related PTSD to last a lifetime and he really doesn’t need to owe anyone else any more money, but the shop owner always manage to change the subject and Jeonghan only seems to remember when he’s five minuets away from his dorm. 

“I’m saving you money, as well as a whole lot of withdrawal symptoms and a possible caffeine addiction.” Jisoo always says, ushering Jeonghan out the door early in the morning when he insists on opening up his wallet because 'you keep letting me walk out without paying you, and you don’t even /like/ almond milk-‘, chuckling gently as he gently pushes away the crumpled notes Jeonghan tries to hand him. “A cup of coffee costs me nothing. Hurry up, you’re going to be late. The bus is coming.”

\---------------------------------------

As soon as Jeonghan gets to the bus stop and manages to shove his wallet back into his bag, the bus is just pulling up. How Jisoo can hear the bus from inside the shop and over the roar of rush hour traffic, Jeonghan has no idea, and how he knows the correct time to gently shove Jeonghan out the door when the shop is notably devoid of any clocks is utterly beyond him. There’s no way he could have memorised the five-page monstrosity that is the local bus timetable, and even if he had, there are days where Jeonghan tries to get the bus from the stop right outside his dorm, only to wait there for over an hour before another student comes by and helpfully informs him the busses are cancelled, for whatever reason, or just ‘not coming’.

But no matter how long he stays in Jisoo’s shop, sipping his coffee while watching Jisoo shuffle things around, he never misses it. He can watch Jisoo shuffle things around on his shelves for what feels like hours, watching him lug around crates of books, bags of miscellaneous items or on one memorable morning, pickled rodents. But Jisoo never lets him miss his bus. He always arrives at the bus stop just in time, and there’s somehow always an isle seat free, even during the midday rush hour, and despite the usually abysmal morning congestion, he's always at his lectures on time. 

\----------------------------------------

He’s tried to explain these uncanny valley-levels of good luck to Jisoo, often over his Thursday morning coffee while he’s waiting for the caffeine to kick in, trying to find out wether the shopkeeper is actually omniscient or wether he just has a really reliable bus app that the student tech support centre has forgotten to share with him. 

Jisoo tells him that its because he’s lived in the area for so long.

“But it’s so weird.’ Jeonghan had whined, lamenting dramatically while draped over the counter that Jisoo doesn’t even wear a /watch/ so how the hell - “Seriously. The morning my lab report was due in, I was in here for what must have been fifteen whole minuets and I still caught the bus on time! It’s supposed to come at 7:45 and I swear I was here by 7:40-“

“Are you sure you read the time right?" Jisoo asks, polishing Jeonghan's glasses for him with a cloth that had seemingly appeared in his hands the moment he'd taken them off him. "Chronology isn’t really your strong suit early in the morning. Last week you set your alarm too early and you came through the door panicked that it was nearly quarter to eight when it had only just gone 6:30-"

Jeonghan waves his hand dismissively, purposefully ignoring the subtle jibe at his timekeeping abilities. "Not even Wonwoo has your level of eerily-accurate and convenient timing and I’m pretty sure that pocket watch he has is surgically attached to him. It’s just - Like it’s not that I don’t appreciate it because who knows how many lectures I would have missed if you didn’t boot me out the door on time every morning and I probably would have given myself caffeine poisoning and a few cavities if you hadn’t helped wean me off Starbucks caramel macchiato’s, but it’s seriously like..“

“...like magic?”

Jeonghan looks up and meets Jisoo’s gaze, as tender and humouring as ever. The early morning light comes through the window in soft, warming rays, and Jeonghan watches as the dust particles it highlights drift past Jisoo’s face, watches how his brown eyes seem to sparkle with a depth and mirth Jeonghan still feels so far from understanding. The comforting quietness of the shop stretches between them. Jisoo blinks, long lashes fanned out against his cheek for a fraction of a second, and Jeonghan feels like a supernova has made it’s home within his chest. He isn’t sure how much time goes by as he watches the light dancing in Jisoo’s eyes, in a way that looks so much like stars, shining within those endless pools of golden brown. 

“..Yeah, like magic."

**Author's Note:**

> devoted to many kind, special friends, who continue to inspire me, and make me laugh daily
> 
> leave a comment, tell me what you think. I haven't posted anything in a while, so feedback is much appreciated
> 
> chat with me on tw: @xngelhxnnie
> 
> <3


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